Don’t be fooled by the whimsically beautiful, hand-drawn aesthetic Smoke and Sacrifice. Set underground and spanning multiple biomes, Smoke and Sacrifice is a wonderfully crafted survival adventure with an engaging story and an infuriatingly steep learning curve. This game goes from cutesy and innocuous to immediate psychic scarring in the span of its own intro scene.  How is that even possible?  Might have something to do with the player taking an active role in sacrificing the main character Sachi’s first born child upon an altar surrounded by sun-worshiping religious acolytes.  Maybe.

The only reason I decided to play this game, out of a choice of several others, was purely visual.  So, being the habitual lazy mug I am, instead of doing research along the lines of watching the entire YouTube video, reading about Solar Sail Games, or, you know, doing literally anything at all before just jumping into this, I… just jumped into this.

And once you jump in, the real nightmare begins. Flash forward seven years; the lights go out, the smoke pours in, and the monsters come into the village.  Taking control of Sachi, the player will use the ensuing chaos, wrapped in a thick blanket of panic, to check out the temple and alter where Sachi gave up her child, only to be teleported to a hellish landscape of terror and smoke shrouded danger.

Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the brightest lighthouse on the coast, and I generally like my games fast and simple.  But, had I taken the time from the outset to pay attention to the background environment, I probably wouldn’t have died 20 something times before making any significant progress in my first play-through.

Without the player ever being involved, the ecosystem of this world carries on with it’s bad self.  Polyps (little jellyfish enemies) mate and produce offspring, plants swallow glowbugs and emit protective light, anglermoles eat fireflies and belch flames at you.  Why does any of this matter?

Actual transcript of this fight: F***. This game is hard… No wait, I got it… Nevermind, I’m dead again.

See that monstrosity in the picture up there?  That was the first big enemy I was tasked to kill.  And how many times did he annihilate me instead?  An embarrassing amount.  It wasn’t until I accidentally brought him too close to that wasp nest that the coin finally dropped.  The wasps killed the boar, I killed the wasps, and I then applied that lesson to every other big-bad in the game.  Paying attention to the environmental interactions are the key from taking Smoke and Sacrifice from impossibly frustrating to an enjoyable experience.

Even the sound design is amazing.  Flapping insect wings, gnashing teeth, screen rumbling explosions, and prosaic music all contribute to a perfect symphony to accompany you on your quest.

Of course, no game is without its flaws.  However, in this particular case, for Smoke and Sacrifice they are few and far between.  Sometimes items you try to pick up are inaccessible because of the placement of permanent objects and how items drop.  Also there’s… um… well, actually, that’s about the only bug I found. Other than the wasps.

Fans of diesel-punk, the crafting elements of Ark, and games like Penny Arcade’s On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness should definitely give this one a go. From perfect visuals and incredible audio, not a tedious amount of grinding, Smoke and Shadow is a visually perfect game with incredible audio and a plot that gave me actual nightmares. I cannot wait to play more.

PS: SAVE.
PPS: SAVE OFTEN.

Editor’s Note: This review was written in conjunction with Jon Calise, a contributor to Sub Cultured. You can find more of his writing on his personal blog, Petting Zoo Rejects.